I Have just about finished building an M1A1 (Dragons early kit, the one with the with a mine plough and the crap box art ). I have a thing about these vehicles. Of all the Kits, on the M1 which is the best .

Cookie

Right now the new Tamiya M1A2 is leading the pack, but I am hoping the new Dragon one coming out in december will take the lead away. The new tamiya turret is very accurate, but it still has the old innacurate hull. The Dragon one is supposed to be all new tooling.

Rob
Didn't know Dragon are bring out another M1.Is it A1 or A2. I have seen that Italeri are bring out a M1A1 with resin engine details.
Any details or pictures of the Dragon please let me know. I am always doughful about manufactures claims about release dates. Trumpeter are seemely releasing a set of US Marines in Iraq uniforms but as yet i havent seen anything available here in the UK. Will Dragon really release the kit in December 2004.
Thanks


Cookie

Dragons will be an M1A1 AIM or Abrams Integrated Management Program which rebuilds older M1A1s to a zero time/zero hours "like new" condition. Should be an Standard M1A1, we will see how it turns out. I personally like the Dragon M1A1/A2 models. Before Tamiya's latest release (which still doesn't have anti- slip coating on the turret and hull) they were considered the most accurate Abrams on the market. Yes, they are a little fidgety in the build, they aren't add glue and shake like Tamiya, but that is part of the fun. A little challenge is what makes modeling great. Hope it comes out in DEC too, we shall see.

I speak only of accuracy, not of fun of the build. If you want fun, then try scratchbuilding an accurate hull, that is fun! But if you take a dragon one nd build it up so it is accurate then it is quite fun. The Tamiya one is now probably the most accurate. Dragon's new one is supposed to be an all new tooling and I have worked with the people designing it so I do know a little about the design. They wanted an accurate hull for all models of the Abrams so they could do a Panther II and I have seen some of the design drawings for the hull and they are pretty good. I think they will be re-making all their early kits like they did with the Nashron. Something about wanting to undo the problems with their first kit designer.

Is it the M1 AIM which the RAAC will be getting?

All AIM's are built to the same standards.

So the RAAC ones will not have specific mods? ie radios, airconditioners, etc?

I can't say what the Ozzie's will do to them after they get them, but as I understand it the are getting 70 some odd AIM's right out of the Lima plant.

Yes we are getting 70 odd of these. But the track record for ALL Australian defence Force vehicles is that they are modified to suit what we want.

So I cannot see them staying standard for too long once we get them